Certain MOVs reliably crash the software

[AVaughn]

Hi guys,

Hopefully this is the right place for such a post/enquiry...

I am trying to convert some funny internet videos so I can put them onto my ps3, because unfortunately, whilst it's media support is decent, it doesn't do all formats/containers/etc.

I am converting some MOV files, and I notice that a few crash my avidemux program, stop it dead in it's tracks every time. I drag & drop the files into the program (not doing any appending!), and it's an immediate crash. If I go File>Open I get the same issue.

I was using 2.8.1 from end of 2022, and it crashed here.

I then also tried what I thought was the latest version: avidemux_2.8.2 r231217_win64.exe (from this month?) and lo and behold, this thing also crashes.

2 things:

1) I did read on the website, it says, "if things crash, disable openGL", if this is under Edit>Preferences>Display, then I have done this, and can assure it makes no difference, tried all possible combinations of the 2 relate OpenGL toggles.

2) Why does the top of this forum say "Main version 2.6"? What I have (at least my 2022 install) was gotten straight from the sourceforge website, are we meant to expect stable peformance from 2.8.x or is it a still-in-development-so-bugs-may-exist situation?

Anyways, whilst I had this latest 2023 version installed, I noticed it's error message provides some code dump, which I thought may be useful, so I took a screenshot of everything, and will "try" to attach it here. I have since uninstalled that and am back to my 2022 version. The 2022 version basically gives the same error message but I think without the extra detail?

Anyways, I am just wondering what my options are, avidemux (at least for single videos) seems to be quite brilliant, I am not unfamiliar with software development so if i can somehow help witha bug, I'd love to.

1st screenshot is of the error + the big code dump

2nd screenshot is of the "mediainfo" result when I load up one of the problematic MOV files (I have a handful of them...).

Again, if there's a better place to submit this stuff, aplogies I didn't find it. It's late and I am sleepy.

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[eumagga0x2a]

Hopefully this is the right place for such a post/enquiry...

Yes, it is, albeit the "Main version" subforum might have been even better as the issue is most likely not specific to the Windows platform.

I am converting some MOV files, and I notice that a few crash my avidemux program

If the content of the videos you mention is innocuous enough, please provide a sample (better: multiple samples) via WeTransfer, Mega, Dropbox or Google Drive. The assert suggests that these QuickTime containers are either corrupted (an atom stores wrong info about its length) or there is a genuine bug in MP4 parsing code in Avidemux. A sample would be needed to investigate.

I then also tried what I thought was the latest version: avidemux_2.8.2 r231217_win64.exe

At the moment, the latest build for Windows is r231223 (last code change from 2023-12-20), but there haven't been any modifications affecting the mp4 demuxer, so it will assert (a safe crash due to an unhandled state) too.

1) I did read on the website, it says, "if things crash, disable openGL"

A blind shot in the dark, pointless in this case.

2) Why does the top of this forum say "Main version 2.6"?

A question only the maintainer of the project / the admin of the forum could answer. "2.6" in the name points back to the time as Avidemux transitioned from frame-based <= 2.5 code to time-based >= 2.6 one.

I am not unfamiliar with software development so if i can somehow help witha bug, I'd love to.

If you would like to get hands dirty with Avidemux development, the easiest and least time-consuming entry is by having a Linux system (Fedora or Debian / Ubuntu) which would allow you to obtain a build environment for Avidemux with minimum efforts, please see the instructions at https://github.com/mean00/avidemux2 . You would need to install the git package first, of course. This would make you at least independent from the supply of official Avidemux nightly builds.

[AVaughn]

Hey eumagga0x2a (what a great username),

Thanks for your reply, I got so bogged down with other stuff that I didn't have time to check up on this thread (I didn't forget, although it would probably make me look better if I said that...), so apologies for the ridiculous delay in my response.

Anyways, I had a bit of a think when you said "it could be the program, or it could be the files", and actually, these are the only files in my MOV folder which Windows doesn't generate a preview for, and whilst my old VLC media player can play the files, trusty Windows Media Player which is far older, cannot, suggesting to me it's somehow the files, perhaps they are concocted in some new-fangled manner that makes them harder to open.

I am creating a google drive folder with two such movs, these are my only two examples, wetransfer doesn't last forever so I hope you don't mind this method. The contents of the files is pretty safe although they are old joke "meme" videos from 2021-2022 that I pulled from social media sites. These are the "party crasher" file which reliably crash avidemux. FYI Google Drive probably wants a fairly modern browser to work properly, if you need the files sent a different way, let me know.

I don't mind posting this link publicly, I don't know if this forum has some sort of "spoiler" system for protecting stuff from unregistered users, but I wouldn't worry about it:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-FoOwnEayZa2D5KuTJZhEqFXt1YsxUoR?usp=sharing

Let me know if you got the files OK, if they do indeed crash stuff on your end too, etc.

[eumagga0x2a]

Thank you very much for the samples. The files are fine, the bug is ours. I got Avidemux to open both files locally without a crash, a proper fix which might be committed and pushed to the repository will take some time.

[AVaughn]

The files are fine, the bug is ours. I got Avidemux to open both files locally without a crash.

Is that so? Wow, interesting. I am surprised that the files are fine and it's an avidemux bug, I definitely would have thought it was the other way around. Anyways, I am happy to have been able to help, even if in some small part.

[eumagga0x2a]

The issue should be fixed in code now, please try a future nightly or build it from source yourself.

I wonder which tool has created these videos and what was the direct purpose. The files seem to be technically fully valid for me, but adding a duplicate avc1 stsd entry for each keyframe seems very strange (I could not identify a system behind adding duplicate mp4a atoms for the audio track).

Thank you for your report.

[eumagga0x2a]

Fresh nightly builds (except for the vsWin64 one for now) have been generated and uploaded, please feed as many MP4 and MOV samples to them as possible to ensure that possible regressions are quickly found.